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Dr Qunfen Qi

Biography

Dr Qunfen Qi is a research fellow in the EPSRC future advanced metrology hub at the University of Huddersfield. Qunfen has a BEng degree in Mechanical Engineering and an MSc in Measurement Technology. She was awarded a PhD by the University of Huddersfield on 2013 with a thesis entitled “Bridging the knowledge gap between design, manufacture and measurement in the field of surface texture” under the supervision of Professors Dame Xiangqian Jane Jiang, Professor Liam Blunt and Professor Paul J Scott at the Centre for Precision Technologies (CPT), University of Huddersfield. A mechanical engineering, measurement technologies and information technologies background provide her a wide range of knowledge and skills in mechanical design, applied mathematics (category theory), computer and information techniques, surface metrology and systematic knowledge on ISO geometrical product specifications and verification (GPS) system.

Qunfen’s research focuses on applying mathematics theory and information technologies for advanced manufacturing to improve manufacturing intelligence, by supporting knowledge representation, interrogation and reasoning for smart design, manufacturing and measurement of advanced products. Qunfen is currently working on a Fellowship in Manufacturing Project, funded by the EPSRC. Her current work focus on designing a new knowledge representation language that is based on category theory for representing ontologies and relationship networks between ontologies, named category ontology language (COL), and developing a set of reasoning rules and basic to facilitate knowledge reasoning. During the project, she has also worked on developing a novel geometrical product specification and verification (GPS) systems to control geometrical variability in manufactured products that facilitate emerging industrial requirements in the 21st century.

During her PhD project Qunfen designed and developed an infrastructure that integrating with CAD system of all entities involved in the manufacturing supply chain, including SMEs, institutes and end-users to support surface texture design, manufacture and surface metrology. Main contributions are to create novel knowledge model to structure the complicated and numerous surface texture knowledge based on Geometrical Product Specifications (GPS); to establish a new prototype system to facilitate designers, engineers and metrologists by a multi-tasks platform for surface texture design, manufacture and measurement; and to propose a new integration method for bridging the gap between prototype system and CAx systems. These resulted in a categorical model for profile and areal surface texture, which has rigid mathematic base, rapid computing ability, robustness, efficiency and without redundancy; and a XML based integration method for integrating the prototype system with CAD systems. The established knowledge model and prototype system have been presented to peer academics and UK industries including Rolls Royce Manufacture Group. Qunfen also shows her knowledge in the other related fields such as functionality of surface texture in tribology, uncertainty theory, tolerance design and metrology.

Qunfen is an active member of Women in Science and Engineering (WISE), and she was invited to give several talks (UK, China) representing woman scientists to speak about her research vision and share her experience. She is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). She also contributes to teaching in mathematics, mechanical Science and Enggineering and dynamic systems; assists with supervision of PhDs, Master students; and supervision of final year undergraduate students. She has peer reviewed for leading journals in advanced manufacturing such as Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technologies, Wear, Precision Engineering Computer-Aided Design, and Measurement.